What Would You Do If Asked By Complete Strangers To Take A Photograph Of ThemWriten by Roger Lewis
This is a great time of the year to get out and get those photos.
In most parts of the world, Spring is in full swing. Spring Flowers and spectacular weather providing sunny spells often between the rain and storms.
But what happens when somebody asks you to take a picture of them.
And for those of you in Sunny climeswill find that Young fashion in also in full swing with sexy young and not so young people expressing their fashion taste or lack of it, where low cleavage almost meats up with tattooed belly or butt. And I'm not just talking about the men!
I was in Tel-Aviv the other day, as one sometimes is, when I met up with two young ladies heading off to the beach, they were wearing their pants so low, it seemed to me a waste of time bothering to ware them at all...
Now I'm not one to complainwhen it comes to seeing more of a young lady than your use to, but I always seem to think, they didn't make them like that when I was that age and sad to think that I would have to read the instruction manual to know what to do about it if asked...
The conversation went something like this, So your a photographer, do you work for CNN, (they must had noticed my camera bag and tripod) No, I replied, they usually employ somebody less than half my age. You must be nearly 40 years old then, At least that I replied and counting...
Do you want to come to the beach with us and take some photos, OK I'll walk with you I said, after all my appointment was only ten minutes from where they were headed.
We arrived just five minutes or so after getting off the number 47 Bus in Alanby St, opposite the Carmal Market.
Will you take our photo please, and before I could make some excuse that I didn't have any film in my camera, one of them produced from her cleavage a Canon digital, point and shoot type camera and handed it to me. I thought to myself, lucky Canon.
Come on they said, We've never had our picture taken by a pro British Photographer visiting from London. Which made me realise how much my mouth must have been abbling as I had seem to have told them most of my life story in ten minutes.
I said to myself, serves you right for labbing, now I will have to compose the picture correctly, consider the angle of light, remember to turn flash on to eliminate shadows under the eyes, not to mention the shadows under the cleavage, (concentrate Rog on the task in hand), and some exposure control.
By the way this is how you should treat every picture taking experience, carefully composing your image in the frame, for example placing your subject off center in the frame and including foreground interest and making sure that you don't have a lamp post growing out of the top of somebody's head.
The thing about using a Canon camera is that it's all laid out so logically and weather you are using the top of the range pro digital or film camera or the simple point and shoot digital camera, the images are always grate.
They striped down to their bikinis, which seem to me to get briefer year by year, or was it me getting older year by year! Then my previous fashion experience kicked in and I found myself directing a 'mini' fashion shoot without all the personal I use to have in tow while on assignments in the past, including showing my two models how to pose for the camera. Well I must say they were delighted and we had even managed to attract a crowed of people, much to their delight as well.
One guy who was watching asked me how much I would charge to shoot pictures of his teenage daughter on his camera and hearing his American accent, I told him $100.00. He agreed and ten minutes later I picked up a hundred bucks before I heading off for my appointment, only arriving ten minutes late which in Israel is considered the correct time for an appointment.
The girls were taking pictures of me working while I was shooting this guys daughter and they contacted me a few days later when they had been to the lab to have their memory card downloaded to make prints of their photo shoot. They couldn't thank me enough and I had only detoured out of my way some twenty minutes and picked up 100 bucks in the bargain. I'm sure there is a moral to this story somewhere and if I think of one I'll let you know, unless you come up with one first!
Are you getting your shooting experience? You know one of the most important things in becoming a good photographer, like a pilot, is getting you flying hours. Practice makes perfect and without practice there would be no population!
Roger started his career in the early sixties at the tender age of 15 as an apprentice in a large London Ad/Fashion Studio.
A few years late he became one of London's youngest most successful Ad/Fashion photographers, with many clients asking for his services.
In the seventies he became freelance and took most of his clients with him. He retired recently but still carries out selective assignments. He also runs several websites, one of them is: PhotoRog.com
Roger also teaches and helps photographers and beginners with advice from his vast experiences in Ad/Fashion photography.
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